


Hiding in Plain Sight

by junebug333



Category: DCU, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Barbara's POV, Dick Grayson is Robin, F/F, F/M, Gotham Academy, Just for funsies, M/M, Secret Identity, be ready, because we love her, but lets pretend it's at the end of her and dick's freshman year, he's also the worst, lots of yearning, not sure when babs actually becomes batgirl in yj canon, school fic, tags may change as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26399632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebug333/pseuds/junebug333
Summary: When Batman prohibits Robin from joining his team on a mission to Gotham Academy due to a conflict of interest, Dick approaches Barbara with an idea. After all, Batman said Robin couldn't go, but he never said anything about Dick Grayson.Or; Dick and Barbara help the team with a mission at their school while trying to keep their vigilante identities under wraps.
Relationships: Artemis Crock/Zatanna Zatara, Barbara Gordon & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson/Wally West, Kid Flash/Robin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105





	Hiding in Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a sucker for this whole secret identity thing. Too good. Look out for more chapters.

Barbara wasn’t sure how she got herself into this situation. Sneaking through her school at 10pm on a Wednesday night, no staff or students there to catch them, her father blissfully unaware, thinking she was at ‘politics club’.

  
Honestly, the fact that her dad was the commissioner of the GCPD and could organize officers and vigilantes alike to catch some of Gotham’s most deadly criminals, but couldn’t figure out the oddness of his daughter attending a ‘politics club’ at her school until 10:30pm twice a week was baffling to her. She wasn’t complaining, though. The idea of a political extra-curricular must have been pretty believable for Gotham Academy, considering even Bruce had believed Dick when he told him.

  
Speaking of Dick, he shifted in front of her, the shoulder of his school blazer brushing against the hands she had clasped together at her chest. All the lights in the hallways were off, and as Dick turned around, she could barely make out any features of his face through the dark beside the shine of his eyes.

  
She didn’t need to see his face, though. She could tell by the way his posture changed; his shoulders stiffening, his hands clenched into fists at his sides-- he was panicked. Dick Grayson being panicked was never a good thing.

It all started about a month ago.

Barbara had been trying to squeeze through the busy halls of Gotham Academy to the back doors. It had been a busy day; she supposed the lull of late spring and general boredom of students had motivated teachers to assign extra-heavy loads of homework as of late. And she was trying hard not to let Chemistry kick her ass. She could beat a group of up to five thugs single handedly, but not her stoichiometry homework. Go figure.

  
Dick had nearly jumped her in the hallway, he was so eager to get to her and tell her something. She watched as he shoved his way through groups of kids, bounding toward her with a furrowed brow.

  
 _Uh oh_ , she thought. _Here comes half-an-hour of listening to bitching and moaning._

Turns out, she had been right. Dick all but dragged her outside by the sleeve of her blazer, rambling about Bruce. Bruce wouldn’t let him something, something. To be completely honest, she couldn’t pick up on half of what he was saying. Dick had a tendency to make very little sense when he was talking passionately about something, and he sure seemed passionate about whatever Bruce had told him. In a furious kind of way.

  
Once they had separated themselves from the other loud students-- also all shouting to their friends-- and sat down at one of the picnic tables, Dick had started explaining more calmly and slowly that the team had been assigned a mission to Gotham, and Bruce wasn’t letting Dick -- _Robin_ \-- go.

_“Bruce isn’t letting you go with your team on a mission in your own home turf?” Barbara asked after throwing a cautionary glance around. She was pretty sure they were far enough away from the other kids to be overheard, but it was better safe than sorry. “I mean, I guess Artemis also lives here, but you know Gotham inside and out.”_

  
_Dick worried his lip between his teeth, clearly deep in thought. Finally, after tugging at a loose thread on his sleeve for about 15 seconds, he let out a resigned sigh and rolled his eyes._

  
_“Well, the mission has to do with Gotham Academy,” he admitted._

  
_Barbara smirked. “Ah, so he’s not ‘completely out of his mind’ for not letting you go.”_

  
_“I disagree!”_

  
_“Dick, it’s kind of a conflict of interest, don’t you think?”_

  
_Dick groaned, obviously not planning on having Barbara disagree with him. “It’s not like I’ve never been to Gotham Academy as Robin. I’m very capable of being discreet.”_

  
_“Right,” Barbara replied, trying to sound unconvinced just to rile him up._

  
_“Barbara!” Dick snapped, throwing his hands in the air in exasperation. Ever the dramatic performer._

  
_“What’s so special about this mission that’s giving you such bad FOMO?”_ _At that point, most of the students had filed out of the school grounds. Starting to relax from the strict confines of their school, Barbara reached up to undo her hair from its tight ponytail._

  
_“This isn’t just our usual ‘go and gather intel’ type of mission!” Read: ‘blowing something up’ type of mission._

  
_Barbara quirked a brow at him, still fiddling with her hair tie._

  
_“Well, Bruce isn’t really involved in it,” Dick explained. “From what I know, he just gave Kaldur the run-down and said he’s free to investigate however he sees fit for the team. Kal told me it could be an ongoing mission that takes as long as a couple weeks!”_ _He stopped there, staring at her expectantly._

_“Ok?” She said, confused._

  
_“Don’t you get it? When has Bruce ever given up control like this? He’s finally giving the team freedom on a super interesting case, and I’m not allowed to go!”_

  
_Barbara’s hair fell down onto her shoulders, finally released from its tight confines. She shrugged. “I’m gonna be honest, Dick. This is Bruce we’re talking about. It might seem like he’s giving the team a bunch of freedom, but he probably has some sort of ulterior motive here. I mean, isn’t he the world’s greatest detective? Why wouldn’t he just go and investigate this himself?”_

  
_“I’m used to Bruce having ulterior motives. I just wanna help with a cool mission.”_

  
_Barbara shrugged again, unsure of what to say at that point. “Sorry.”_

  
_She expected Dick to be disappointed, maybe complain a little more and collapse his head into his arms on the table, in true drama queen fashion. Instead, a devilish smirk tugged at his lips, one that made a couple of alarms go off in Barbara's head. He was about to propose some rule breaking._

  
_“Which is where you come in.”_

  
_Barbara gave him a weary look. “Dick--”_

  
_“Bruce said Robin can’t go. He didn’t say anything about Dick Grayson. And maybe his best friend ever, Barbara Gordon?” He finished off hopefully._

  
_Barbara crossed her arms over her chest. “So let me get this straight: you want to work together with your team, as our alter egos, on a long and complex mission, against Batman’s orders?”_

  
_“...Yes.”_

  
_“You’re crazy.”_

Let it be said that Barbara argued the idea for a while. Once Dick fully explained the circumstances, though -- suspected corrupted government influence in organizations all over Gotham, including their school -- she was a little more than intrigued. And to be fair, no completely sane person would dress as a bat and jump around rooftops at night, anyway. You had to be a little crazy to be a vigilante.  
So, she gave in.

It took a little while to organize; Dick had to relay the little information he was given about the case to her so she could organize algorithms and ensure they had authorization to the right rooms and programs on the school’s security system. Their plan was to conveniently ‘still be hanging around the school’ during the team’s first mission, so they couldn’t show up empty-handed, or the team would kick them out right away. They had to prove they had information and assets that could help. Hence, hacking the school’s security system. She didn’t have permission to do any of this, of course, but she supposed she was pretty far past the point of asking for it.

So a week after their original conversation, 6pm, waiting in the tech lab classroom of their nearly empty school, Barbara was feeling a little nervous. Dick sat across the room, playing around on one of the many computers the room was filled with. It looked like he was playing some sort of 8-bit video game; for all she knew, he had probably just coded it in the time they’d been waiting.

It’s what they’d been learning about in their tech class during the day--basic coding. Barbara and Dick had sat in the back corner, Barbara trying to stifle laughter as Dick tried not to look bored out of his mind. They were both far beyond any basic coding their teacher was teaching them, but it was a required class for their grade, so they were forced to sit through it everyday.

At that thought, Barbara started to worry a little bit about the team catching on to her and Dick’s identities. She hadn’t had too many interactions with them as Batgirl, but Dick was very close to all of them as Robin, and it wouldn’t be hard to deduct her identity if they figured out Dick’s. It wasn’t even the team’s reactions she was worried about (Dick either, in fact he wanted to tell the team his identity; yet another sore spot with Bruce), but more so the consequences the reveal would have with their mentor.

Before she could entertain the thought any further, she heard muffled voices from outside the door. One quick glance from Dick told her it was the team.

“--no, that would be in the office. Wouldn’t it?”

  
“Sorry, Baywatch! Wasn’t aware you actually go to this school!”

  
“I’m just saying--”

  
“Well stop saying! I know what I’m talking about.”

  
The door knob rattled. Barbara quickly made her way across the room to hover behind Dick’s chair, as if they were both looking at something on his computer screen. He quickly closed the seven YouTube tabs he had opened, and instead entered their coding assignment from class earlier that day, right in time as the door opened.

Right away, Artemis stormed into the room like she owned the place, wildly gesturing to the computers around her.

  
“See, Wally? The computer lab has computers. Isn’t that shocking? This is why you should--”

  
Artemis’s attention finally caught to Barbara and Dick in the corner of the room. Barbara straightened up, trying not to look too much like she just got caught, and reminding herself that this is _her_ school.

  
Artemis’s expression quickly shifted to something disdainful as she stared past Barbara, right at Dick. For a second, Barbara’s heart skipped a beat, scared that Artemis somehow immediately saw through their disguise.

  
“The hell are you doing here, Grayson?”

  
This seemed to foster some curiosity from the rest of the team, as they pushed their way past Artemis and stepped into the room, all staring at Barbara and Dick. Barbara noted that ironically, Wally seemed the most shocked out of all of them to see Dick there, considering he was the one person on the team who knew his identity. She figured Dick didn’t tell Wally about their little plan. Wally wasn’t exactly known for being the best actor.

  
“I actually go to school here,” Dick said snarkily.

  
Artemis narrowed her eyes, not falling for it. “So you and Barbara are just hanging out alone in the computer lab,” she checked the time on her phone, “Three hours after school ended?”

  
“Yes,” Dick answered. “Is that a crime?”

  
As Artemis floundered for a response, Barbara suddenly remembered all the times Dick had complained to her about situations like these. Apparently Artemis had some personal vendetta against Dick Grayson for some reason, and he couldn’t escape her constant scrutinizing. She thought he oughta get used to it at this point. There were plenty of people who didn’t like Dick Grayson just for the sake of disliking him. He was the ward of a billionaire, and constantly in the public eye. Still, it was pretty funny that one of those people happened to be his alter ego’s teammate and close friend.

  
“What are _you_ doing here, Artemis?” Dick flipped the question back at her with a cocky smirk. “And who are these randos? You’re grilling me about being in the computer lab, while you’re bringing a bunch of random kids into our school? Where’s your authorization for that?”

  
Though she’d never admit it for fear that his ego would grow past its already abnormally large size, Barbara was always impressed with Dick’s ability to flip a conversation on its head. She realized she had sort of checked out of the conversation out of fear of saying something that would give them away. After all, Dick was the expert at lying to these people.

  
With another pang of panic, Barbara finally registered that no one on the team was wearing their suits. They were all dressed in civilian clothing; even Artemis sported a hoodie and jeans in favour of her school uniform. Which meant Barbara and Dick couldn’t allude to the fact that the team was on a mission. As far as Artemis was concerned, no one knew she was a vigilante at all, despite using her first name as her hero name, a choice whose reasoning was lost on Barbara.

  
“These are my friends,” Artemis answered after a moment of hesitation. “I know that word may be foreign to you, Barbie Doll.”

  
Barbara could have laughed at how far Artemis was going out of her way to try and get under Dick’s skin.

  
If it was working, Dick didn’t show it. He leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up onto the desk with an easy chuckle. “Well, lucky for you, I’m not a snitch. You and the randos can stay.” He said it as if he was doing Artemis an enormous favour, which only seemed to irritate her more.

  
Before she could say anything, Kaldur stepped forward. With a weary glance toward Dick and Barbara, he turned to address Artemis. “Perhaps we should go to the office, after all. I’m sure they have computers there.”

  
Before Barbara could register what was happening, Dick planted his feet on the ground and was rolling his chair across the room to his teammates. “What are you guys doing?”

  
Artemis sent him a particularly nasty look, but after following him over to stand next to his chair, Barbara could see that Dick wasn’t looking at her. He had addressed the question directly to Wally, staring at him pointedly.

  
“I’m sure Dick could help us with the computer stuff,” Wally said, his voice wavering slightly with uncertainty. After the rest of his team gave him incredulous looks, he shifted on his feet. “I-I mean, I’ve heard about his--um-- he’s good at computer stuff. I read that somewhere. Cause he’s famous and all.”

  
So Dick was trying to get Wally to lie for them. This truly _was_ turning into a desperate situation. Deciding she couldn’t possibly be worse at lying than Wally, Barbara finally spoke up. “That’s true, actually. I’m not too bad, myself. If you guys need help with anything around the school, or with computers or anything, we can help.”

  
Artemis scoffed. “No than--”

  
“We _are_ missing our tech guy,” Zatanna interrupted. Seeming to sense that her wording sounded weird to an outsider, she back pedalled slightly. “We have this friend who’s really good with tech, but he’s busy today.”

  
It was almost too ironic not to laugh at. Barbara saw the corners of Dick’s mouth twitch up as they shared a quick knowing glance.

  
“Well,” he said. “I’d be happy to substitute.”


End file.
